$320,000 Bail for Graffiti? Is that a misprint? ..Nope, it’s true.. just double checked. They grabbed up REVOK at LAX boarding a flight to Ireland on Sunday. A real FBI style (and QUITE costly) takedown.

“Revok, one of Los Angeles’ best known graffiti writers, was arrested as he prepared to board a plane to Ireland at Los Angeles International Airport, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department reported.

Jason Williams, a.k.a. Revok, was taken into custody Thursday for an outstanding arrest warrant for failing to pay restitution, according to sheriff’s Capt. Mike Parker.

Authorities claim Revok is a member of the graffiti crew Mad Society Kings, or MSK. Officials from the sheriff’s department were notified that there was an outstanding warrant against Revok for failure to repay victims of previous vandalism incidents.

That led to his arrest, officials said.

Revok is being held in the Los Angeles County Jail in lieu of $320,000 bail.

— Richard Winton”

Here’s some other bails set IN the past 2 months, and also IN Los Angeles County (taken from Logan Hicks)…

Shit is mad fake. The L.A. river is a fake river. Silver Lake is a fake lake. The plastic surgery. The girls. So many of the people. The wack LA hipsters and the corny Hollywack scene. I’d rather just read The Arab Parrot, and look at his pic of all the clowns I missed from the night before. And even he did the right thing and flew the coop a few weeks back. Good move.

Sick of the L.A. art scene. Sick of Shepard Fairey and his Fuct-up plagiaristic art. Sick of Mr. Brainwash and his mockery of the art world (first art show grossing over 1/2 million$!). If that’s what it takes to make it, I’m all set.

Sick of cars and driving. The city is designed wrong and public transportation here is so useless, that you really have to drive. Driving everywhere. Tickets. Tickets, and more tickets. Car towings. Random car repair bills. Traffic here can make a 15 minute drive turn into 2 hours. Cars are wack. And the gas prices (insane skyrocketing from $3 to $5.15 in the spring)! Fuckin gas. Aren’t people dying over this shit?!

Sick of the segregation. It’s ridiculous. All of the black people are in South Central, Compton or Watts unless they are even less fortunate than that and are on Skid Row. Mexicans live in central (excluding Skid Row) and East LA. Asians live in their retrospective neighborhoods (Chinatown, Koreatown, Little Tokyo). The white people live on the West Side (Beverly Hills, Hollywood, Los Feliz, Silver Lake), on the top of all the hills, and anywhere near the ocean. There’s not much interaction between races here. No getting on the subway and seeing 12 ethnicities and hearing 6 languages being spoken on the same train. Most of the conversations between races here are actually people yelling at each other while driving. Maybe I’m weird, but I like diversity.

The economy in LA is severely unbalanced. There’s alot of money here, but it doesn’t seem to get around very well. No wonder there’s been some frustration here before (and before that). It seems that you are not making $30+ an hour, you are basically a “Mexican” (meaning everyone else) getting minimum wage. That is, IF you can get work.

Sick of jobs falling through, people wanting art but then “We really want your art, but we don’t quite have the budget. But if you wanna do it for free, it would surely help your portfolio”. ..Um yeah.. charity usually involves helping someone that needs it, not helping your store look better so you can sell more cupcakes. I have to eat. So if I work for you, then “Fuck you. Pay me.” If I just wanted to paint a wall.. I can find walls to paint.

Sick of the best time to get something done out here always being “tomorrow”. Let’s just get shit done!

Sick of the weather. “But it’s ‘perfect'”. Bullshit. It’s the same everyday, and it is borrrring. I can get into a cloudy day, fall foliage, painting in the snow, spring rain and rebirth. Bad weather makes me appreciate the “nicer days”. Sick of the sun. The sun is over-rated, and causes skin cancer, heat stroke, squinting, and exhaustion. Sunsets are ok.. because it’s leaving. Like me.

(*All this ranting aside, thanks and big ups to my all my friends still in Los Angeles. Now I just gotta get y’all out!)

Humans create vandalism all over. I’m not talkin about some 2-dimensional, changing the colors of stuff. I mean vandalizing our planet by putting our shit everywhere. When I climb a mountain, get to the top and look off to see our buildings, roadways, and cities, I can’t help but think about how THAT is vandalism. And when railroads get put down, along with their fences and their walls, isn’t that vandalism? And when the train horn is blasting at 2am or a plane is flying overhead breaking the silence isn’t that a form of “audio vandalism”? When a new high rise condo in Brooklyn blocks the “sunset over Manhatten” view that their neighbors have had for 50 years, isn’t THAT vandalism? Vandalism in a full 3 dimensions.. “3-D vandalism”.

Don’t get me wrong.. I like walls and trains. I just so happen to want my walls and trains painted. So fuckin what.. I change the color of something. Yeah it’s vandalism. It’s ALL vandalism!

*more on the history of graffiti, “ownership”, and graf vs. advertising another day..

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A few months ago, this girl says to me “Don’t you get sick off drawing the same thing all the time?”. And it made me think.. is it all the same? Am I just repeating the same subjects, styles and color selections on all these individual pieces? Or are artists just working on something bigger. Each “piece” is literally just that.. “a piece”, and “the big picture” is really.. “The Big Picture”.